A 15 October, 2012, blog of mine talked about the need to fashion a mobile marketing strategy, as distinct from a digital marketing strategy; and that advice still holds good. The topic for this week's blog was prompted by two recent news items: one was the latest IDC Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker press release, and the other was an article by Betsy Frank, Chief Research and Insights Officer, Time Inc., in Mobile Commerce Daily.
IDC's 10 April, 2013, press release revealed that its latest Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker (Q1 2013), recorded worldwide PC shipments, at 76.3 Million units, down 13.9% compared to the same quarter last year (Q1 2012): much worse than the forecasted decrease of 7.7%.
Time Inc. commissioned an Innovation Panel Study of almost 1,000 tablet and smartphone owners during December 2012, which revealed that:
Tablets are overwhelmingly used at home, in a relaxed ambience. On the other hand, smartphones are still mostly associated with being on the move, despite the fact that 40% of the time, the device is used at home.
Accordingly, the user's frame of mind differs for each device: with tablets being associated with "me time" (leisure and relaxation) and smartphones being associated with "found time" (goal-oriented information-gathering).
The tablet is the device most used as the second screen, to complement television viewing.
Ads are more accepted, and even welcomed, on tablets, compared to smartphones.
So, it is clear that the swing, among personal users of digital devices, from PCs to smartphones and tablets, is well underway, and that the phenomenal growth in the installed base of smartphones and tablets is happening at the expense of the traditional PC form-factor (desktops and notebooks). Furthermore, it is now becoming clear that the user-situations for each of these devices (smartphone and tablet) is different, and significantly so. Confusing matters further still is the convergence of the functionalities of a smartphone and tablet, in a device called the phablet: a big-screen (in excess of 5" or 12.5 cm.) smartphone. Is the usage pattern, on such a device, that of a smartphone or a tablet?
Under the circumstances, it is no longer just necessary for a brand-owner to have a mobile (smartphone) marketing strategy, it now needs to formulate and execute a tablet marketing strategy too. Brand-owners in India have a little more time to define the contours of each of these strategies, given that it is going to be at least a year before the adoption of these devices reach critical mass in the market in general, as opposed to their current widespread use in niche consumer groups. Be that as it may, when a brand-owner does get around to formulating them, how would it differentiate between a mobile strategy and a tablet strategy?
Content
The key differences between user experience on a smartphone and on a tablet are that a smartphone is co-spatial - the facility whereby the device allow its owner to carry it on her person always, in an immediately-accessible manner - and that the usage pattern is mainly one of content-consumption, on the tablet, while being a mix of content-consumption, handshaking (hi, where are you, what are you up to, etc.), and information exchange in the case of the smartphone. These differences make clear the need for differing content marketing approaches, for each of these devices.
Smartphones will benefit from brand information (where available, latest deals, etc.) content rather than brand image content, and this could be better delivered through a series of apps rather than over a mobile-optimised website. Considering that smartphones are the key devices used while showrooming, a brand should also make available content that will facilitate this activity and make it more user-friendly. Location-Based Services (LBS) are a good fit for smartphones. Gamification is another content approach that would work well on smartphones, primarily as stop-gap time-fillers. Finally, Augmented Reality (AR) apps are an ideal fit for smartphones. The tone of the content should be sales-pitch oriented.
Tablets have a larger screen real-estate and, accordingly, content delivered on these devices should leverage this feature. In addition, the fact that tablets are most frequently used at home means that data bandwidth and bandwidth cost are not at as much of a premium as when roaming. Visually rich and audio-rich content, experiential brand communications, and a website optimised for the tablet screen should be the pre-requisites for a brand's tablet marketing strategy. The fact that tablets are very frequently used as second screens should be leveraged in terms of tying brand communications to popular TV programmes and complementing these programmes. Finally, an ecommerce app or an ecommerce portal on the brand website will allow the brand-owner to monetise the shopping habits of a large percentage of tablet users. The tone of the content should be one of "come and experience the brand".
Advertisements
The brand-owner's mobile advertising strategy has to reflect the reality that smartphone users tend to get irritated with unsolicited and irrelevant advertisements: after all, the user is usually on the move and bandwidth, data usage, and battery life are subliminal worries. If advertising is to be delivered on a smartphone it should be targeted, location-based, and should promote a deal that is immediately redeemable or should be interactive.
Advertisements on tablets can afford to be expansive and experiential: after all tablet users engage with online advertisements. Since the pitch is not going to be "hard-sell", highly targeted ads are not recommended; rather, the traditional broadcast ads would do fine.